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To sleep, perchance to dream: Ay, that's the rub for David Steiner
If the NY Times has it right,?the Commissioner of Education for New York State ?may not have had a great Thanksgiving.
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Tilson v. Ravitch: No turkey trot this one
Whitney Tilson unveiled his new website today. ?It's still a work in process,? he says in his Thanksgiving email message announcing the debut, ?but I want to go public with it because the first major content on the site is my rebuttal of Diane Ravitch?
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Nonracialism, neoracialism, and the question of affirmative action
Monday's New York Times offered one of the more stimulating and thought-provoking articles to be found this holiday week.
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Education News Nuggets
Parents, there's finally a way to get your kids to eat their veggies: just have Michelle Obama over for dinner.?
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Quotable & Notable
?We already know that social acceptance is one of the primary concerns of adolescence. If achievement comes at a social cost, there are obviously going to be differences in teenagers' motivation to achieve.'' * Thomas E. Fuller-Rowell, Institute for Social Research Fellow at the University of Michigan
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Could it be worse than we thought?
Review: A Call for Change: The Social and Educational Factors Contributing to the Outcomes of Black Males in Urban Schools
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Education News Nuggets
The panel of experts to help Commissioner Steiner with his big decision has been convened; if Cathie Black doesn't get her waiver, mayoral control
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Quotable & Notable
?I think it's opened a whole new chapter on analyzing school performance.'' Texas State Representative Rob Eissler, on a new statistical model developed by the Education Resources Group
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Checker in NY Post
Checker has an op-ed in today's NY Post?it's entitled, Senseless ?certificate,' silly hurdle for schools boss. In it, he criticizes the NY state law requiring that school-system heads possess a ?superintendent's certificate.?
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Extra! Extra! Read all about it! (Now drop it.)
Listen up, Ohio, especially all you Debbie Downers/Negative Nancys/Chicken Littles who have paid rapt attention to the ongoing public drama between outgoing Governor Strickland, and well ? Governor Strickland's office telephone.
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Field notes: Through the special ed looking glass
While Mike was reporting that special education spending was ?heading toward one-third?
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Stretching the special ed dollar is desperately needed, too
Today Rick Hess takes up the issue of special education spending on his blog, and gives Arne Duncan a fair bit of grief for delivering a
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Quotable & Notable
?Restructuring pay systems is like kicking a beehive.'' * Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
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Historically speaking, we're in a rut
Our prolific friend and colleague, AEI's Rick Hess, publishes more books than Borders stocks, and it would be exaggerated to say that every single one of them is a seminal contribution. But this one is genuinely important.
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Rep. guvs: "the public is on our side" (in taking on public employee & teacher unions)
For several years, Fordham-Ohio has been pointing to red flags when it comes to the sustainability of the state teachers' retirement system (STRS).
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Who's protecting teacher privacy?
In an odd twist on the issue of teacher privacy, Peter Murphy of the New York State Charter Schools Association is reporting that charters in New York won another?judicial victory last week when state's highest court rejected an attempt by the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) to obtain payroll records showing the full names, titles, cor
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The power of the (small) press
I knew where I was as soon as the Ukranian cabbie pronounced the city a dictatorship and a teachers union leader told a room full of education reformers how good it was to be back in a town ?where you can use your hands when you talk?and swear.? ?Bulls?t!? someone shouted.
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Here today, Gove tomorrow
Britain's Education Secretary Michael Gove hasn't wasted any time since assuming his post in May. In these short six months, he's implemented a new ?free schools? initiative, which takes a page out of America's charter-school book by allowing groups (mostly charities or parents) to establish privately-run, publicly-funded schools. He's also sought to increase the number of ?academies?
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Echoes of Pat Moynihan
In today's New York Times piece about the alarming achievement gap between black and white males, we hear this from Harvard scholar Ron Ferguson:
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Duncan and Gates tackle doing more with less
The two biggest spenders of recent years?in American education, namely Arne Duncan and Bill Gates, have come to the realization that a new day has dawned with respect to K-12 budgets.?
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Education News Nuggets
Want a ?private school feel? without paying the private school price? Why not try this fast-growing academy.
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Quotable & Notable
?Now, if you tell a teacher they're not doing a good job, it's like you're attacking the entire profession.? * Michelle Rhee, Former Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools
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Big week for Stretching the School Dollar
So, our Fordham-AEI volume, Stretching the School Dollar (Harvard Education Press, 2010) is having quite a good week.
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Seeds of reform sown by Moynihan (and Coleman)
Seven years after his death, Daniel Patrick Moynihan still makes the front page of the New York Times. The immediate context one day in mid-October was an article on the ?culture of poverty?
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Break out the bubbly for the Nation's Report Card?
Review: The Nation's Report Card Grade 12: Reading and Mathematics 2009
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Why ?academic diversity? is the biggest challenge facing our schools
I've got a new Education Next article out today, drawn from a book I've been working on (actually, more like working on selling!) that's for parents thinking of choosing a diverse public school for their kids.